OEB launches ‘disinformation conversation’

2016-11-30

OEB’s ‘Disinformation Conversation’ will focus on the deliberate spreading of false and misleading information. It will assess the extent of the problem and its effect on society in the Internet age. It will also look at how online education can be used to combat disinformation and to teach discernment.

“Something very strange is happening at the moment,” says Dr Harold Elletson, Senior Fellow of the Institute for Statecraft, who will chair the discussion. “We are seeing a widespread attack on the truth and, in a variety of circumstances, the deliberate downgrading of the importance of facts. This is being done for all sorts of reasons and in many different ways. The effect though is to blunt people’s critical faculties and to confuse them, which makes it easier to manipulate or obscure the truth. The deliberate distortion of the truth can often have serious political, economic or commercial consequences.

“Hasn’t this always happened? Some people say it has. Even as far back as the American War of Independence, there is evidence of the deliberate spreading of ‘fake stories’. However, what is happening now is much more serious. The Internet has made it much more intense. People are getting their news from new sources, which do not operate under the same constraints and, at the same time, they are reinforcing the worst features of some of the traditional media. Some analysts even say we are already living in the midst of a new era of ‘hybrid warfare’, in which disinformation is a deadly weapon. What can we do about it? That’s the question we’ll be trying to answer at the workshop.

“It’s clear that education has a huge role to play. We need to find ways to teach discernment, to make people more skeptical about what they read and to give them the critical faculties to be able to compare information and to read between the lines. This is going to be one of the most important skills in the modern world and, at some point, the survival of humanity or, at least, our freedom may depend on it.”

The ‘OEB Disinformation Conversation’ will take place at 16.30 at the Hotel Intercontinental in Berlin and speakers will include Peter Isackson, the founder and Chief Visionary Officer of Skillscaper and an expert with the European Commission on technology enhanced learning; and Guy Pfeffermann, CEO of the Global Business Schools Network and former Chief Economist of the International Finance Corporation.

For more information about the ‘disinformation conversation’, please contact: @email

Notes for editors
 
OEB 2016 is the 22nd global, cross-sector conference on technology supported learning and training. The conference is held at the Intercontinental Hotel in Berlin from November 30 - December 2, 2016.